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Introducing the Buffalo III-SE-Pro 9028/9038

Hi

Good strategy - that I’m not following because I love the Legatos. :p. Mine are tweaked by ear to gain clear improvements versus the stock components. So I look forward to more good years of enjoyment before moving on... @barrows had tweaked Legatos and went to Mercury, IIRC. His direct impressions would be interesting!

Frank

Frank. My build is progressing slowly, so no listening yet. I built the Mercury with 120R Z-foil gain resistors for ~4V out, and Amtrans caps for the filter section, otherwise stock for now.
Digital power supplies are 22,000 µF Jensen 4-poles to Belleson regs, initial analog supply for Mercury will be a Placid HD BP 1.0 for testing, then i'll build a four output supply with Mundorf 4-poles and Belleson regs. Could not get Salas regs to work for Mercury.
I am going to run Amanero/Cronus with 45.xxxx or maybe 90.xxxx clock only. I oversample everything to DSD 128 via A+. I think having only one beating clock could be an advantage (Amanero XOs are isolated).
Should be interesting, but I am still probably a few weeks out form listening.
 
Frank. My build is progressing slowly, so no listening yet. I built the Mercury with 120R Z-foil gain resistors for ~4V out, and Amtrans caps for the filter section, otherwise stock for now.
Digital power supplies are 22,000 µF Jensen 4-poles to Belleson regs, initial analog supply for Mercury will be a Placid HD BP 1.0 for testing, then i'll build a four output supply with Mundorf 4-poles and Belleson regs. Could not get Salas regs to work for Mercury.
I am going to run Amanero/Cronus with 45.xxxx or maybe 90.xxxx clock only. I oversample everything to DSD 128 via A+. I think having only one beating clock could be an advantage (Amanero XOs are isolated).
Should be interesting, but I am still probably a few weeks out form listening.

What's A+ ? Can you compare the listening experience of DSD directly to power amp?
 
huh?

What's A+ ? Can you compare the listening experience of DSD directly to power amp?

Not sure what you mean on DSD to amp...

Anyway, A+ is the excellent Audirvana + playback software which incorporates excellent digital filters with very adjustable parameters (iZotope), one can make a filter of their own, or mimic that of their favorite DACs.
I oversample all PCM to DSD 128 for playback (native DSD just passes through unchanged).
 
Oscillations...

Barrows, what problem did you have with Salas and Mercury?
Did you try some recommended solution with resistors on the Salas outputs.

Regards Micke

I am not interested in putting a resistor in series with the regulator output, seems like an odd solution, but maybe I do not entirely understand: is not the point of a really good regulator having as low output impedance as possible?
 
I mean people used to listen dsd signal without d/a conversion, as dsd is already analog itself. It was described in The best dac is no dac thread.

You can do it - I have tried it. Like most other people I discovered that you can get music that way, but you get a lot of noise also. Even using the Signalyst DSC1 design, there is a lot of audible byproduct that can make your music sound like badly maintained vinyl for added analog authenticity.

Sorry for the OT.

Mark
 
Hey Russ,

first I'd like to thank you for yet another great product, it sounds pretty awesome (I'm using BIIISEPro 9038 and Mercury). Working great in async mode, no unlocks whatsoever. I'm running it on lowest DPLL setting, which, if I understand correctly is SW2 pos5 set to off.

As for the sync mode - strangely enough, when I first connected masterclock from Buffalo to Cronus via u.fl, I got the music and it locked correctly. But on the subsequent turn ons the lock is flashing and there is noise.

Which lead me to assumption that this is caused by startup issues, race conditions and such, so maybe can be fixed by firmware?
I see that you've commited some fixes to the Git since the original release of the firmware, but the release binary does not include these fixes. Maybe you could build a new one, if these fixes are related to the sync mode?

Now, I know that you've said that there should be no difference between sync and async, but since such option exist, it would be nice to try it :)

Thanks,
Fedor
 
Finally have my BIII 9038 playing! But, the 1.3v trident is hotter than hell! I was playing a dsd64 file, so I can set my shunt current with the high bit rate. After just a few minutes of play, there's a pink noise kind of static, that gradually fades in, and fades out. while the music continues to play.

Any suggestions? Is it normal for this regulator to be hotter than hell?


Power is Placid HD set at 5.00v 50ma shunt current. Only the 1.3v trident is heating up.
 
Still have the noise, playing dsd64 shunt drops to about 180mA. Pause, and it goes to 250mA, CCS is 770mA. Placid is hot too. Will probably need bigger heatsinks!

I have only set the DIP switch one to off, left the others on. I'm using ufl cables between cronus and BIII. I know I have seen some people have trouble with the cables. Sounds like a gradual clock drift or something. Music keeps playing, but is gradually over-powered by the hiss, then hiss fades back to crystal clear music!?
 
I've had a similar experience with dsd. I have a high current 1.2vreg and I get the same stuttering, static swamped replay at anything above dsd128. It gets very warm so I will add a bigger heatsink and try again at some point. I am feeding the reg from its own non-shunted dc supply.

PCM at any rate upto 384kbs seems fine, so I have settled on native rates rather than upsampling everything in HQplayer.

And it sounds absolutely marvellous. I use the anodising filter at the moment.
 
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